Thank you to the many current and former Girl Scout families throughout the nation for your support, comments and research. We would especially like to thank Parents For Life, for their content help and research, as well as Family Watch International.

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In their own words, GSUSA makes the following promises:

“GSUSA policy is not to take a stand on or advocate for or against any issue regarding a girl’s health and sexuality.”

The Girl Scout organization does not take a position on abortion or birth control.”

“Girl Scouts does not endorse or align itself with political parties.”

Yet, many GSUSA recommended resources and role models promote abortion rights, contraception, comprehensive sex-ed and GSUSA provides few to no resources that promote the pro-life position, purity or abstinence.

All of the GSUSA books listed below are part of the current Journeys series, being used now by girls and sold both in council bookstores and on the GSUSA website. The information below takes into consideration GSUSA's Master List/Summary of Material Review dated February 28, 2012. Although GSUSA has some changes to their curriculum content leading girls to abortion rights advocacy groups, and other inappropriate content, GSUSA's 2/28/12 list of changes does not address the concerns listed below.

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Recommends that girls seek out Sierra Club representatives as expert resources for an environmental “Take Action” project. The pro-abortion Sierra Club’s top action step for their “Global Population and Environment Program” is “Increasing universal access to voluntary family planning services and comprehensive sex education.” Sierra Club partners in this project include Planned Parenthood, Guttmacher Institute and SIECUS. Click here for site excerpts and documentation.

Movie watching activity: GSUSA encourages young girls to watch the movie Clueless, which the USCCB rates as morally offensive for its ridicule of virginity, implied affairs and casual substance abuse by adolescents. In 2010, this page was reprinted to remove R-rated movies, Heathers and Jawbreakers, but Clueless remains a GSUSA recommendation on the newly edited page.

Quotes and praises Margaret Mead as an anthropologist and activist. Mead’s anthropology work was very controversial:

From the New York Times: From the publication of her first book, "Coming of Age in Samoa," in 1928, in which she described the values of adolescent lovemaking in Samoan society, Dr. Mead's name became associated with sexual theory. A good deal of her subsequent writing contended that sexual repression worked against healthy maturation of the young and against successful marriages.

Also see this video at minute mark 8, stating that Margaret Mead believed that an important reason that Samoan youth were happier than American/European youth was the “general acceptance of sexual relations between adolescents. Sex was seen as something to be enjoyed in quantity and quality before you chose a partner for life.”

GSUSA says “Still not exactly sure what an advocate is? Check out these websites:” one of the websites listed is Idealist.org. On this Girl Scouts recommended resource, girls will find jobs in advocacy, over 100 listings for jobs at Planned Parenthood. Girls can even find job positing for jobs at groups that advocate for sex worker (prostitute) rights, like the Magazine "$pread", described on idealist.orgas "a quarterly, glossy magazine by and for sex workers and those who support their rights. The magazine has a focus on personal experiences and political insights, and contains practical information like news, features, health columns, and resources related to the sex industry. $pread builds community in the sex trade by featuring the honest and diverse perspectives of those who know it best: the women and men who work within this sensationalized, highly stereotyped industry."

Why is GSUSA promoting this when GSUSA states: The Girl Scout organization does not take a position on abortion or birth control. We believe these matters are best decided by girls and their families.

Abortion

Contraception

Multiple Books (seeIssues column)

Multiple

Although GSUSA tries to distance themselves from WAGGGS' pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-comprehensive sex-ed policies by stating “GSUSA does not always take the same positions or endorse the same programs as WAGGGS,” GSUSA constantly promotes WAGGGS to their girl members in printed curricula and on the official GSUSA website. Consider the majority of the Journeys books promote WAGGGS, send the girls to the WAGGGS website which contains offensive content (see above), and/or promote World Thinking Day (WTD). On WTD, girls are asked to contribute to WAGGGS through the Juliette Low World Friendship Fund. According to Girl Scouts: World Thinking Day Contributions, the voluntary gifts of girls and adults around the world, are one of WAGGGS' major sources of income. Girl Scouts in the USA contribute through the Juliette Low World Friendship Fund. (see page 23 of this document) In addition, on WTD, girls celebrate that they are part of WAGGGS. (see pages 1 and 8 of this document) Does GSUSA warn/remind girls and families that when they donate to WTD, they are contributing to one of WAGGGS' "major sources of income"?

See all the ways that WAGGGS/World Thinking Day is promoted to girls in the GSUSA Journeys books:

Journeys for Kindergarten-1stgrade girls

Three Cheers For Animals: promotes World Thinking Day

The Daisy Flower Garden: promotes World Thinking Day andLeader Guide (page 24) states that the WAGGGS pin symbolizes girls are "members of WAGGGS"page scan here

GSUSA encourages girls to checkout some of the careers you can have with advocacy as an element. GSUSA recommendations for advocacy careers include organizations such as ACLU/lawyer and Doctors without Borders. Click on the organization name to see that these groups are pro-abortion. No pro-life groups are recommended.

NOTE: The section below references the GSUSA program called the Power of Girls. The mentions of the word “abortion” in the GSUSA-recommended reports include a discussion of forced abortion, sex-selective abortion, unsafe abortion and/or the promotion of abortion rights. Our concern here is that abortion, reproductive rights (which according to Hillary Clinton, includes abortion), contraception, rape, etc. are sensitive issues that, at the very least, should require parental consent and notification for girls to be exposed to this. Yet GSUSA places this recommended reading list containing sensitive issues on their website for girls—no age recommendation is specified, no warning or parental notification is given. UPDATE: The information below was made available to girls for three years, from the Power of Girls program launch in 2009 up until we posted this information in March 2012. In March, GSUSA remove the problematic reading list and then in April 2012, GSUSA removed the entire Power of Girls program from their website.

Page 24 states that girls ” should have access to a full range of sexual and reproductive health services and supports. Both formal and informal educational opportunities and health services should be accessible to all”

Page 54. Despite the obstacles presented by political, parental, and fundamentalist concerns, a strong consensus has emerged that adolescents need to know about their sexual and reproductive health and rights and have the means to protect themselves.

Page 23“Some of those tools, like sexual and reproductive health counseling and services, fall within the traditional boundaries of the health sector as part of youth-friendly health services.”

Page 29When girls overcome those barriers, nearly all contraceptive methods that are appropriate for older women are safe for them, except for contraceptive sterilization. Emergency contraception is registered and sold in most countries in the world, but DHS data show that knowledge and use remain extremely low in almost all developing countries; young women in particular do not have easy access to this important “second chance” method of contraception.

Page 99 so good sex education is crucial. it needs to go beyond biological discussions of reproduction and contraception and address the real questions that young men and women need to have answered. “adolescent boys and young men frequently say they want to discuss masturbation, penis size, sexual relations and its various forms, sexual ‘performance’ and female sexuality.

Page 198Ipas is an organisation focused on increasing women’s ability to assert their sexual and reproductive rights. it works in several areas, focusing on sexual violence and youth. it works in advocacy, research, training health workers in safe abortion technique, and technologies and advocacy.

Discusses the repeatedly the importance of “family planning” and access to contraception.

Contraception

As of February 28, 2012 GSUSA announced that the following content will be removed in future reprints. In the meantime, GSUSA has created stickers that the girls can put over the erroneous content. Some Girl Scout Councils have announced that the changes made are “optional”. (Click here to see this announcement) According to this statement, girls can either use the content as was originally written promoting these controversial resources, or they can use the edited “clean” version, it’s their choice. If indeed GSUSA no longer endorses these problematic resources, no information is available as to how the girls who have already read the GSUSA endorsements of these problematic resources will be notified that GSUSA no longer advises girls to use these resources. Girl Scouts has been promoting the very offensive books Persepolis and Gate to Women’s Country to girls for several years.

GSUSA promoted the Gate to Women’s Country, and author Sheri S. Tepper (former Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood Executive Director). Tepper's book is promoted as a feminine "utopia" to Girl Scouts USA. The Gate to Women's County includes prostitution, forced hysterectomies, castration, orgies, profanity (several instances of the f-word), and completely demeans the role of men in society. See book excerpts here and page scan from the GSUSA handbook at this link.

GSUSA's Agent of Change promotes abortion rights activist, Marjane Satrapi along with her book and movie, Persepolis. This book/movie contains attempted suicide, drug use, profanity, sex with multiple partners, Marxism, and mocks God. A copy of the page from the Agent of Change promoting Persepolis (first image in documentation) along with excerpts from Persepolis can be viewed at this link